Elements Of A Play

Question 1

Define a play.

Answer 1

A play is a created world. It is made up of four elements. These are plot, character, theme and style.

Question 2

Define plot as a verb.

Answer 2

Plot means making a plan or reaching a goal. In the dramatic sense, plot is the action. Action means more than what happens, it means the ways events are selected and arranged. The action is more than physical action; it is also what the characters do emotionally.

Question 3

What is the difference between plot and story?

Answer 3

Story is the order of events as they occur. Plot is the way those events are arranged to achieve effect.

Question 4

Plot order 1. Define exposition.

Answer 4

Exposition gives the audience an understanding of the action that took place before the play begins. It tells why, where, when, and how.

Question 5

Plot order 2. Define initial incident.

Answer 5

Exposition usually ends with the initial incident. This is the instant where the balance, which exists as the play begins, is upset. It is the first important event and it opens the plot.

Question 6

Plot order 3. Define rising action.

Answer 6

This is a series of event which builds excitement towards the most dramatic scene of the play-the turning point. The turning point is the point of crisis of the play. At the turning point, one of the two forces or characters gets the advantage.

Question 7

Plot order 5. Define climax.

Answer 7

The climax is the peak of the play. It gives the answer to the main question posed in the play-the answer to the main problem facing the principal character(s).

Question 8

Plot order 4. Define falling action.

Answer 8

This is a series of events that keeps the action-the plot-going until the climax is reached. The falling action must be a logical series of events. They must be the result of what happened during the rising action.

Question 9

Plot order 6. Define conclusion.

Answer 9

The climax is followed by a conclusion that is the rounded off of the plot. Usually, lose ends are tied up.

Question 10

Define character.

Answer 10

Some plays focus on character instead of plot. Plot is what the characters do; characterization is why they do it. When a play focuses on the character, the conflict usually shifts from external(forces against them) to internal(the mind or soul).

Question 11

Define style.

Answer 11

Style refers to the way a play is written. Examples include expressionism, realism, naturalism, and romanticism. The style a playwright chooses usually says something about the playwright’s attitude towards their society and life.

Question 12

Define modern drama character.

Answer 12

Main characters are often ordinary people with everyday problems that many of us could expect to experience.

Question 13

Define modern drama length.

Answer 13

Seldom more that three acts. One act plays are common.

Question 14

Define modern drama climax.

Answer 14

Usually occurs towards the end of the play.

Question 15

Define modern drama plot.

Answer 15

Usually focusses on one plot.

Question 16

Define modern drama stage directions.

Answer 16

Elaborate directions are contained in introductory notes and italicized comments in brackets during the action of the play.

Question 17

Define modern drama scene changes.

Answer 17

Curtains indicated the end of an act or scene whenever required. Scenes in modern plays are limited in number.

Question 18

Define modern drama language.

Answer 18

The use of poetry is almost unknown. Poetical language is greatly reduced.

Question 19

Define modern drama props.

Answer 19

Very elaborate, especially in flim and television productions.

Question 20

Define modern drama staging.

Answer 20

No objection to moment appearing on the stage.

Question 21

Define modern drama inner thoughts.

Answer 21

Conveyed in conversation with confidant(play) or voice over(flim).

Question 22

Define modern drama belief in the supernatural.

Answer 22

None.

Question 23

Define Shakespeare drama character.

Answer 23

The main characters are either knits, queens, princesses, princes, earls, thanes or lesser members of the nobility.

Question 24

Define Shakespeare drama length.

Answer 24

Always divided into five acts. In Shakespeare’s time, audiences were prepared to spend the whole afternoon in the theater.

Question 25

Define Shakespeare drama climax.

Answer 25

Always occurs in act three.

Question 26

Define Shakespeare drama plot.

Answer 26

Often has a major plot with a minor plot(a subplot which mirrors the main plot).

Question 27

Define Shakespeare drama stage directions.

Answer 27

Very limited. The bulk of Shakespeare’s stage directions are contained in the speeches themselves.

Question 28

Define Shakespeare drama scene changes.

Answer 28

A new scene begins whenever someone new enters or leaves the stage. An act is made up of many scenes. Rhyming couplets are used where scene changes are not clearly indicated by the action.

Question 29

Define Shakespeare drama language.

Answer 29

Blank verse is the used for the conversation of the nobility; the grounding(common people) speak in prose. When noble people speak in prose, it indicates that they are speaking of crude or unworthy matters. The writing is characterized by elaborate figures of speech and puns.

Question 30

Define Shakespeare drama props.

Answer 30

Very limited. No lighting(plays performed in the afternoon in daylight).

Question 31

Define Shakespeare drama staging.

Answer 31

All women’s parts were played by boys whose voices had not changed.

Question 32

Define Shakespeare drama inner thoughts.

Answer 32

Frequent use of soliloquies and asides.

Question 33

Define Shakespeare drama belief in the supernatural.

Answer 33

Many references reflect the popular beliefs of the day.

Question 34

Define aside.

Answer 34

A brief, often sarcastic or revealing comment made by an actor to the audience which is not to be heard by the other actors on stage.

Question 35

Define soliloquy.

Answer 35

A speech, usually longer than am aside, made by a character alone on stage. The device is used reveal to the audience the private workings of a central characters mind and to fill in important background information. It can also be used to foreshadow future events.

Question 36

Define character foil.

Answer 36

Any character whom, by their contrast to another character, brings out the personality of the latter.

Question 37

Define rhyming couplet.

Answer 37

Two lines, which rhyme with each other and which, following one another. Shakespeare ends most of his scenes with a rhyming couplet.

Question 38

Define anticlimax.

Answer 38

A falling off or letdown in events or statements, sometimes gradual and sometimes abrupt.

Question 39

Define catastrophe.

Answer 39

That part of a tragedy in which ruin or death befalls one or some of the central characters. This point in the play is termed a catastrophe only when the crisis involves a protagonist with praiseworthy qualities.

Question 40

Define complication.

Answer 40

An event which introduces or intensifies conflict.

Question 41

Define suspense.

Answer 41

The tension and anxiety felt by the audience towards one or more characters whose fate is uncertain.

Question 42

Define irony.

Answer 42

A method of expression in which which the meaning intended is the opposite of that expressed.

Question 43

Define prologue.

Answer 43

A prefacing statement to a narrative or drama. It is usually a spoken or suing introduction to a stage performance. It provides us with information about the story we are about to hear.

Question 44

Define equivocation.

Answer 44

The use of a word or expression with two or more distinct meanings in order to mislead.

Question 45

Define playwright.

Answer 45

The person who wrote the play, the author of the play.

Question 46

Define antecedent action.

Answer 46

Action which took place before the play began but on which the events of the play depend.

Question 47

Define exposition.

Answer 47

Provides the background to the play. It introduces the time, place situation at the present, antecedent action, relationship of the characters, and atmosphere.

Question 48

Define external time.

Answer 48

The length of the production.

Question 49

Define internal time.

Answer 49

The time span covered by the events of the play.

Question 50

Define motivation.

Answer 50

The reason why characters behave the way they do.

Question 51

Define comic relief.

Answer 51

A brief, humorous scene which often involved clowns in Shakespeare’s plays. It’s purpose was to relive the tensions built up in a previous scene.

Question 52

Define epilogue.

Answer 52

A section following the actual plot conclusion of a narrative or drama. It usually sums up or rounds out the overall design of the work.

Question 53

Define tragic flaw.

Answer 53

That quality of the protagonist’s personality which is most responsible for his down fall.

Question 54

Define pathetic fallacy.

Answer 54

A literary device involving the personification of nature which is portrayed as being emotionally sensitive to the plights of man. The storms in Shakespearean drama, for example, almost always occur as defections of civic disorder or human distress. It suggests that nature be emotionally involved with human behaviour.